Adding a New Catalog Entry

Ideally, we would add to the catalog by using the "Add a visualization to the wiki" script. This script can also be used to create an entry if you observe the proper syntax (which you can deduce by looking at the source for an existing entry). It can also be used when a submission form has been sent by a Wiki user via the email notification script.

TODO:

• Fix the syntax for non-camel-case categories
• Document what exactly needs to go into the entry field. What about the format line at the top? What about the boilerplate for the comments at the bottom?

In case the script breaks, here is documentation on how to do this "by hand".

The actual catalog entries are in the "Viz" subdirectory. So their URL is http://algoviz.cs.vt.edu/AlgovizWiki/Viz/[UniqueVizName]. Here are the steps to adding a new entry:

1. Edit the appropriate wiki catalog page the add a link to the new entry. Let's say its a new entry for the Quicksort page, called MyQuicksort. A line would be added to the Quicksort page that looks like "[ [Include(Viz/MyQuicksort)]]" (with no spaces anywhere within the brackets or any question mark). Note that if you add this link and then go look at the Quicksort page, you won't actually see any indication that anything has been added!

2. Create the new page. Creating any new page in the wiki seems to be awkward. I know of two ways. One is to make a link to a new page in an existing page. Then when you look at the existing page, it will show the new page with a ? mark in front of it. The other way that I've found to create a new, unlinked wiki page is to feed the proper URL for the new page to the browser. In this case it would be "http://algoviz.cs.vt.edu/AlgovizWiki/Viz/MyQuicksort". Either way -- clicking on the ? or going to that URL -- will take you to a page that invites you to create the new page, which in turn takes you to the editor for the new page.

3. Create the new entry. The best way to start is to cut-and-paste an existing entry, and then update the fields. Otherwise, you probably won't get it right. Even so, the syntax is awkward, and you probably will need a few tries to get it right.
4. Important note: Your entry's name must be unique across the entire catalog. You are creating a new page in the wiki, after all.

5. Create the actual "comments" page. It would be named "http://algoviz.cs.vt.edu/AlgovizWiki/Viz/MyQuicksort/Comments" and it would contain the single line "[ [PageComment2]]" (without spaces between the brackets or any question mark).